What to Do

I've often heard from friends and acquaintances that their very best friends are the ones that they met when they were in High School and College. Rightfully so because these are the tumultuous years. The years when we pass from pre-adulthood to adulthood and suddenly the world is a bigger place. We are held to our own standards, left to our own devices and accountable for outcomes. It's a time of uncertainty and to have others to share this time with eases the grandiosity of it all.

I have been fortunate in my life to make close friends throughout my entire adulthood. I contribute this to having chosen many stressful circumstances in which I have lead my life. First, there was High School. Okay, High School is just brutal. It's survival of the fittest. One must balance intense schoolwork and social pressures in a sea of changing hormones, growth spurts, puberty, and school dances while living at home with one's parents. No wonder most of us remember our High School friends. It was hell and we bonded together to survive it.

Then came college which is where you take the parents out of the equation and suddenly are expected to be accountable for your actions. Screw up and there's no one to bail you out. My life took a slightly different turn, as I did not go straight to college. I was fortunate enough to pursue an athletic career and in the midst of traveling around the world, performing at an International level all the while trying to maintain Olympic level fitness and diet regimen, living with 8-10 other women trying to do the same, competitively. I was also trying to figure out who the heck I was, now, essentially out on my own, away from my High School friends and my family. More years of who am I and what do I want to do with my life? It was easy to bond with the women I traveled with. They had the same level of stress, the same unanswered questions, the same level of uncertainty. Not all of us could be gold medalists. We knew it. We knew that each of us would have her particular success and it would be different than the success of our teammates. We were hardest on one another calling each other out if we acted stupidly or slacked off even remotely. We swore, we drank, we unlocked the hotel front door when our friends went dancing and got locked out. Well, at least SOME of us did. We did a lot of growing up fast. For that reason, I am very comfortable with a group of women who simply seem to speak my language. We are able to ignore one another for years and then once reconnected, rip on each other like the old days.

I have had people tell me that in the 20 years since their High School and College years, they have not made the same quality of friends since. My theory is that it is probably because commonly, life's storm gently eases and we are a little more comfortable within our own skin. This is not the case for me because after college, I chose not to engage with the adult world. Instead, I took a job as a river guide, running rivers in California and Oregon and managing to remain off the adulthood grid for roughly 8 years. As any former river guide knows, there comes a new rite of passage learning to be responsible for 27 people in the wilderness on Class III and IV rivers. Our job was to not only navigate the rivers themselves but to also set-up an entire kitchen and river camp for 25-27 people (including children), keep them warm, keep them fed, keep them comfortable and show them the time of their lives without giving any inclination of how dangerous it really was or how clueless most of us really were. We depended on each other. There was no 911 when someone got hurt. There were no taxis to take you to a hotel and one bad attitude meant the death of a trip. Some of the greatest people I have ever known work for a rafting company of some sort. They are connected to the Earth and connected to humanity in ways most people cannot fathom. They are the soul of the human race and I am honored to have shared a campfire with them.

Despite loving that job, it soon became apparent that I would not be able to do it forever. Largely because it didn't pay much and because at some point, the younger generations start to outnumber you. I went to nursing school and ultimately landed a job in the emergency department. Spend a few years (like 12) in an ER with a group of people who are a constant witness to life and all of it's crises and you almost don't even have to speak with one another while occupying the same room. You've shared life and death moments with those people and everything in between and a look between you is usually enough. If words are exchanged they are open, direct and to the point because it's understood that every second counts and feelings are not always the priority in the moment. I have a handful of really close friends that I can't imagine living in this world without and we rarely talk to each other.

Since my diagnosis, I have reconnected with many of my High School friends, my Ski Racing friends, my river friends and my nursing friends. Ironically, they all have that same "deer in headlights" look on their faces and they all confide in me the same thing: "I don't know what to do."

I empathize.

When my friend Stephanie was diagnosed with brain cancer, I felt paralyzed. How could this happen to this young, vivacious woman and what would the world be without her? No one wants to say the word "Cancer', no one wants to allude to the possibility of death or worse (in my case), debilitation. No one wants to be negative. EVERYONE knows that either Cancer itself, or the treatment of it, is hideous and no one wants to go there.

So what does one do when their friend gets Cancer? What does one say?

For me, I have shared a crazy experience of growth or rite of passage with the best of my friends, and in those moments, my true friends would not let me act badly, be negative or slack off. They challenged me. They used sarcasm and harsh words, openly and directly, and slapped me when I was being stupid. They cried with me, but only for a moment and then pushed me back into the fray and told me to quit feeling sorry for myself. They went out and won ski races and sent me post cards. They made the move at Blossom Bar on the Rogue River so we weren't saving their asses in the dark with 27 hungry people looking on. They made me learn the rapid infuser inside and out, made me learn to scrub despite my reluctance and they brought me Ativan, X-ray and lab technicians, and pints of blood when I screamed for it. They showed up on my doorstep, uninvited, unannounced and unphased when I was diagnosed with Cancer, and many of them will soon shave my head. My friends bring out the very best in me by challenging me to be better than I've ever had to be. It is surreal when all of these amazing people tell me they don't know what to do or that they feel "helpless". Naturally, without provocation, they inspire me to endure. I will undergo chemotherapy and radiation and withstand the side effects of both as my friends pick me up, dust me off, pat me on the butt, and send me back into the battle against Breast Cancer. They won't let me whine or whimper and will challenge me to get back up just one more time. And while they desperately search for the thing "to do" that will make all of this better, I don't have the heart to tell them that they already have the hardest job of all.

They will have to watch.